The Campervan Adventures

Chapter 6.. 'Dangerous Sam and the pasta explosion..'

Fraser Island- a world heritage listed sand island- was our destination for our three day 4x4 tag-along tour. As described by the Lonely Planet Fraser is "an ecological wonderland like nowhere else on earth". As described by me, Fraser is "like being in Jurassic Park, only with dingos not dinosaurs".

There were about 50 of us in total on the trip and we were split into groups of 8. Each group of 8 had their own 4x4 which everyone took turns in driving. Fraser, which is about 120km long, has no roads so all of the driving is done either on very bumpy tracks through the rainforest or along the beach. There were seven vehicles in our convoy in total, let by our two guides Olly and Hans.

Hans was an adorable German guy, who was 54 years old (not a lot older like I guessed when he asked!oops!) Hans and I didn't get off to a great start. I'm not sure why but every time I was driving (and he only did it to me) he'd overtake and mess up the whole convoy order or he'd just drive alongside me which meant not only did I have to worry about controlling this bloody huge vehicle through sand but had to worry about Hans lurking beside me. We made friends at the end though and I forgave him for bullying me!

Our other guide was Olly. Within five minutes of meeting Olly Lodge decided she fancied him. We estimated he was early 30's, he had a good body, lots of tattoos and knew how to use an axe.. Or maybe it was the fact he didn't wear shoes the entire three days that she liked, I don't know, but she was pretty smitten until...
We found out he was 49 and a grandad !! Hahaha! Now that's a bit old even by Lodge's standards! He was a good laugh though and very 'at one with nature' so we gave him the nickname 'George of the Jungle'. He taught us all about the wildlife and interesting facts about Fraser..or at least we thought they were facts. What we have learnt about the Aussies is if they don't know something they aren't afraid to make up an answer!

In our car there was Lodge and I, an English couple- Dayle and Sam, three Dutch girls- Marte, Jody and Chantelle and Kate from Germany. So that's seven girls and Sam.. Poor guy (or lucky guy, depending on how you look at it!)
We got on with everyone really well. Especially with Sam and Dayle, the first two people we've met in the last 3 months who share our ridiculous sense of humour.

We love to talk s*** Lodge and I..in fact probably well over 50 percent of our conversations are about completely made up nonsense. (For example.. A 70 year old hairy fat man will walk past us at a campsite, maybe he'll say a friendly "Hi" to us and then one will say to the other; "You hooked up with him last night didn't you?!" And the other will reply; "Could you sense the tension. I hope his wife hasn't found out" and then we'll have a 20 minute conversation about it like it's the most normal thing in the world... Adjusting back to the real world isn't going to come easy to us!! It amuses us greatly and turned out Sam and Dayle were right on our wavelength..perfect! Cue lots of very comical conversations, mostly about made up rubbish. I'm not sure the German and Dutch girls got the game or understood what we were going on about 90 percent of the time. They probably thought we were bloody mental !!

As well as our car there were all sorts of weird and wonderful characters on our trip, making for some very fun nights drinking together around the campfire.
Some of our favourite characters included:

Sandwich- a german guy who made the most fantastic jam-packed sandwiches with the help of his trusty pen knife!

Scary Lezza- a girl called Chloe who pretty much fell in love with Lodge. One evening I went for a shower and came back to find that Chloe and Lodge had practically become lesbian life partners (more on Chloe's part than Lodge's, she was just trying to brush it off and not show how freaked out she was by her!) The best bit was when Chloe got out her guitar as we were all sitting around the campfire and sang Bruno Mars 'Girl you're amazing..' Whilst staring into Lodge's eyes!
Actually, I lie, the best bit was when she found out about Lodge's boobs and asked to see them..purely because she was thinking about having it done herself and wanted to see the scars..hmm, likely story! The good friend that I am I left Lodge to deal with her new found lover and headed to bed.

Chef and Sous Chef- a couple of French people who got their nicknames after their escapades on the BBQ which, let's just say, didn't involve burgers but did involve a sausage!

And our strangest camp mate- Marcus. A 43 year old German who dressed like Crocodile Dundee. I cannot put into words how funny he looked the day we went walking through Eli Creek. Words would not do his fishing vest/cowboy hat/budgie smuggler (speedo's to you and I) combo justice- you'll have to check out the pics! He was such a strange fellow, no one could really understand why he'd booked himself onto a trip with a load of 18 to 25 year old backpackers, but he amused us, mainly with his attempts to be Australian and say "Crikey" which always came out as "that's Crikey" in a German accent. Honestly, words fail me with this one. Needless to say though, Lodge made friends with him too.

We did meet some normal people too.. Four girls, Lianne, Sophie, Alice and Julia, who coincidentally are in NZ and Fiji when we are and are on our flight home so we hope to meet up with them again along the way. Finally 11 weeks in and we've made some female friends!!

What we actually got up to while on Fraser Island was a whole host of things. There was lots of driving between places, but it was very fun driving in our big jeeps, through the sand (getting stuck) up hills, over tree trunks, through the sea and, in Lodge's case, through the air!
Within minutes of taking the wheel she decided to put the vehicle back in two wheel drive..not by moving the appropriate lever but by speeding into a bump in the sand which caused us to fly through the air, front wheels off the ground and land in the sea, just as a huge wave hit. As if salt water flooding through the windows wasn't enough, our lunch- a huge bowl of pasta bolognaise for 8- spilled all over the car. So from then on our group was know as 'Dangerous Sam and the Pasta Explosion' !! (Don't ask how Sam got his 'Dangerous' tag.. Just another one of our random nicknames!)

In addition to breaking cars, we did find time to visit some absolutely stunning places on the island. On the first day we went to Lake Mckenzie- a lake full of rich mineral sand which has anti-aging properties (maybe this was why we got Olly's age so wrong if he spends so much time in the lake!), we went on a walk through the rainforest and visited the Maheno Shipwreck, a kiwi boat (as in one from New Zealand.. no one that carried kiwi's Lodge..) that was blown ashore by a cyclone in 1935. The weather was a bit dodgy and so the sexy rain macs had to come out a few times. Turned out we should have embraced the rain as it was the closest we'd be getting to a good wash for the duration of our stay.. which brings us on to the camp.

It was basic to say the least but it was all part of the experience. There were four toilets- one of which didn't have a door, two had doors but they didn't shut and the fourth didn't have a light. There were probably about 100 girls in total staying at the site and there were just the two showers.. Needless to say we came back in desperate need of a good wash!!

We also visited Eli Creek- a crystal clear fresh water creek- where we took a stroll through the knee deep water on the second morning. Being the gullible idiot that I am I volunteered to go first when we got to the deep hole- which came up to my neck- and got me and my clothes soaked only for our guide to laugh and then direct everyone else through the shallow bit around the hole thus leaving me looking like a drenched fool ! The rest of the day was spent visiting Red Canyon, Indian Heads- the best vantage point on the island, the Champagne Pools- unfortunately no butlers handing out Champagne here as I'd hoped.. But the only safe place to salt water swim on Fraser, a massive sand dune and lake full of turtles. It was topped off with an amazing BBQ cooked by our group, which, just like all my Dad's BBQ's the thing set fire and everything burnt but it tasted amazing !!
Quite a lot to fit in to one day- yes, so it seems- but when you are made to get up at 7am there is a lot of day to fill ! As our families will know, neither of us are morning people. Even though we were sleeping directly on the floor in a tent which had to be checked for deadly spiders before we got in and was in a campsite where you couldn't go anywhere alone in case a dingo attacked you, when you only went to bed at 3am, we'd have given anything to have been able to lie in !!

Our last day at the camp we visited Lake Wabby, which is surrounded one three sides by eucalypt forest and on the fourth a massive sandblow. Lodge managed to totally destroy all its peace and tranquillity by doing a big bomb into the water- I think she was still drunk.. She'd been the last to bed again ! Then it was back to Hervey Bay and to round off the trip a night in the hostel bar with our group and guides.

Lodge had already got her name as 'the one who didn't sleep' after her alcoholic antics and on this night I got my tag as the girl who is scared of wet tissue. Midway through the drinking games someone spilt their drink so Marcus- the old, Crocodile Dundee wannabe German- gets his tissues out of his multi-pocket waistcoat (which we found out also housed extra large condoms, cigars which could be mistaken for tampons and shells) and begins mopping it up, in turn making me gag which our tour guide Olly (you know the old Grandad Lodge fancied) found hilarious and made me stand up in front of everyone and explain why I'd run off in the other direction upon the sight of the horrid soggy tissue. Then he told everyone it was "people like me who make life interesting. If everyone was normal life would be boring.."..I'm not entirely sure if this counts as a compliment or not?!

All in all an amazing few days. We arrived back on the mainland very tired, with half a ton of sand in our hair, in need of a good shower, in need of a Goon detox and with lots of new friends (plus some weird acquaintances!) and the knowledge that it's always best to check if someone has grandchildren before deciding that you fancy them...